An incompressible surface $F$ on the boundary of a compact orientable 3-manifold $M$ is arc-extendible if there is an arc $γ$ on $\partial M - $ Int $F$ such that $F \cup N(γ)$ is incompressible, where $N(γ)$ is a regular neighborhood of $γ$ in $\partial M$. Suppose for simplicity that $M$ is irreducible, and $F$ has no disk components. If $M$ is a product $F\times I$, or if $\partial M - F$ is a set of annuli, then clearly $F$ is not arc-extendible. The main theorem of this paper shows that these are the only obstructions for $F$ to be arc-extendible.
In this paper, by putting a separating incompressible surface in a 3-manifold into Morse position relative to the height function associated to a strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting, we show that an incompressible subsurface of the Heegaard splitting can be found, by decomposing the 3-manifold along the separating surface. Further if the Heegaard surface is of Hempel distance at least 4, then there is a pair of such subsurfaces on both sides of the given separating surface. This gives a particularly simple hierarchy for the 3-manifold.
We study the existence of incompressible embeddings of surfaces into the genus two handlebody. We show that for every compact surface with boundary, orientable or not, there is an incompressible embedding of the surface into the genus two handlebody. In the orientable case the embedding can be either separating or non-separating. We also consider the case in which the genus two handlebody is replaced by an orientable 3-manifold with a compressible boundary component of genus greater than or equal to two.
In this paper, we give an algorithm to build all compact orientable atoroidal Haken 3-manifolds with tori boundary or closed orientable Haken 3-manifolds, so that in both cases, there are embedded closed orientable separating incompressible surfaces which are not tori. Next, such incompressible surfaces are related to Heegaard splittings. For simplicity, we focus on the case of separating incompressible surfaces, since non-separating ones have been extensively studied. After putting the surfaces into Morse position relative to the height function associated to the Heegaard splittings, a thin p…
One can embed arbitrarily many disjoint, non-parallel, non-boundary parallel, incompressible surfaces in any three manifold with at least one boundary component of genus two or greater [4]. This paper proves the contrasting, but not contradictory result that although one can sometimes embed arbitrarily many surfaces in a 3-manifold it is impossible to ever embed an infinite number of such surfaces in any compact, orientable 3-manifold M.
We prove results showing that the existence of essential maps of surfaces in a manifold M' obtained from a 3-manifold M by Dehn filling implies the existence of essential maps of surfaces in M.
A triangulation of a compact 3-manifold is annular-efficient if it is 0-efficient and the only normal, incompressible annuli are thin edge-linking. If a compact 3-manifold has an annular-efficient triangulation, then it is irreducible, boundary-irreducible, and an-annular. Conversely, it is shown that for a compact, irreducible, boundary-irreducible, and an-annular 3-manifold, any triangulation can be modified to an annular-efficient triangulation. It follows that for a manifold satisfying this hypothesis, there are only a finite number of boundary slopes for incompressible and boundary-incomp…
This is a "software upgrade" to a paper originally published in 1976, with cleaner statements and improved proofs. The main result is that, in a Haken 3-manifold, the space of all incompressible surfaces in a single isotopy class is contractible, except when the surface is the fiber of a surface bundle structure, in which case the space of all surfaces isotopic to the fiber has the homotopy type of a circle (the fibers). The main application from the 1976 paper is also rederived, the theorem (proved independently by Ivanov) that the diffeomorphism group of a Haken 3-manifold has contractible c…
A combinatorial condition is obtained for when immersed or embedded incompressible surfaces in compact 3-manifolds with tori boundary components remain incompressible after Dehn surgery. A combinatorial characterisation of hierarchies is described. A new proof is given of the topological rigidity theorem of Hass and Scott for 3-manifolds containing immersed incompressible surfaces, as found in cubings of non-positive curvature.
This is the third in a series of papers constructing hyperbolic structures on all Haken three-manifolds. This portion deals with the mixed case of the deformation space for manifolds with incompressible boundary that are not acylindrical, but are more complicated than interval bundles over surfaces. This is a slight revision of a 1986 preprint, with a few figures added, and slight clarifications of some of the text, but with no attempt to connect this to later developments such as groups acting on R-trees, etc.
Given an injective amalgam at the level of fundamental groups and a specific 3-manifold, is there a corresponding geometric-topological decomposition of a given 4-manifold, in a stable sense? We find an algebraic-topological splitting criterion in terms of the orientation classes and universal covers. Also, we equivariantly generalize the Lickorish--Wallace theorem to regular covers.
We study the effect of the mapping class group of a reducible 3-manifold $M$ on each incompressible surface that is invariant under a self-homeomorphism of $M$. As an application of this study we answer a question of F. Rodriguez Hertz, M. Rodriguez Hertz and R. Ures: A reducible 3-manifold admits an Anosov torus if and only if one of its prime summands is either the 3-torus, the mapping torus of $-id$, or the mapping torus of a hyperbolic automorphism.
Let $\F$ be a compact surface and let $I$ be the unit interval. This paper gives a standard form for all 2-sided incompressible surfaces in the 3-manifold $\F \times I$. Since $\F \times I$ is a handlebody when $\F$ has boundary, this standard form applies to incompressible surfaces in a handlebody.
We show that if M is a complete, finite-volume, hyperbolic 3-manifold having exactly one cusp, and if H_1(M;Z_2) has dimension at least 6, then M has volume greater than 5.06. We also show that if M is a closed, orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold such that H_1(M;Z_2) has dimension at least 4, and if the image of the cup product map in H^2(M;Z_2) has dimension at most 1, then M has volume greater than 3.08. The proofs of these geometric results involve new topological results relating the Heegaard genus of a closed Haken manifold M to the Euler characteristic of the kishkes (i.e guts) of the comp…
We show that for certain hyperbolic 3-manifolds, all boundary slopes are slopes of immersed incompressible surfaces, covered by incompressible embeddings in some finite cover. The manifolds include hyperbolic punctured torus bundles and hyperbolic two-bridge knots.
Suppose M is a cusped finite-volume hyperbolic 3-manifold and T is an ideal triangulation of M with essential edges. We show that any incompressible surface S in M that is not a virtual fiber can be isotoped into spunnormal form in T . The proof is based directly on ideas of W. Thurston.
We find boundaries of Borel-Serre compactifications of locally symmetric spaces, for which any filling is incompressible. We prove this result by showing that these boundaries have small singular models and using these models to obstruct compressions. We also show that small singular models of boundaries obstruct $S^1$-actions (and more generally homotopically trivial $\mathbb Z/p$-actions) on interiors of aspherical fillings. We use this to bound the symmetry of complete Riemannian metrics on such interiors in terms of the fundamental group. We also use small singular models to simplify the p…
We show that if two 3-manifolds with toroidal boundary are glued via a `sufficiently complicated' map then every Heegaard splitting of the resulting 3-manifold is weakly reducible. Additionally, if Z is a manifold obtained by gluing X and Y, two connected small manifolds with incompressible boundary, along a closed surface F. Then the genus g(Z) of Z is greater than or equal to 1/2(g(X)+g(Y)-2g(F)). Both results follow from a new technique to simplify the intersection between an incompressible surface and a strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting.
Let M be a closed, irreducible, genus two 3-manifold, and F a maximal collection of pairwise disjoint, closed, orientable, incompressible surfaces embedded in M. Then each component manifold M_i of M-F has handle number at most one, i.e. admits a Heegaard splitting obtained by attaching a single 1-handle to one or two components of boundary M_i. This result also holds for a decomposition of M along a maximal collection of incompressible tori.
If M is a manifold with compressible boundary, we analyze essential disks in M, as well as incompressible, but not necessarily boundary incompressible, surfaces in M. We are most interested in the case where M is a handlebody or compression body. The analysis depends on a new normal surface theory. We hope the normal surface theory will be used in other papers to describe objects representing limits of essential disks in a handlebody or a 3-manifold with compressible boundary. For certain automorphisms of handlebodies, these disk limits should serve as invariant objects akin to laminations and…
Let N^h be a hyperbolic 3-manifold of bounded geometry corresponding to a hyperbolic structure on a pared manifold (M,P). Further, suppose that (\partial{M} - P) is incompressible, i.e. the boundary of M is incompressible away from cusps. Further, suppose that M_{gf} is a geometrically finite hyperbolic structure on (M,P). Then there is a Cannon- Thurston map from the limit set of M_{gf} to that of N^h. Further, the limit set of N^h is locally connected. This answers in part a question attributed to Thurston.
When a Dehn filled link manifold contains a geometrically incompressible one-sided surface, it is shown there is a unique boundary incompressible position that the surface can take in the link space. The proof uses a version of the sweep-out technique from two-sided Heegaard splitting theory. When applied to one-sided Heegaard splittings, this result can be used to complete the classification of one-sided splittings of (2p, q) fillings of Figure 8 knot space: determining that fillings with |2p/q|<3 have two non-isotopic geometrically incompressible one-sided splitting surfaces.
The author defined for each (commutative) Frobenius algebra a skein module of surfaces in a $3$-manifold $M$ bounding a closed $1$-manifold $α\subset \partial M$. The surface components are colored by elements of the Frobenius algebra. The modules are called the Bar-Natan modules of $(M,α)$. In this article we show that Bar-Natan modules are colimit modules of functors associated to Frobenius algebras, decoupling topology from algebra. The functors are defined on a category of $3$-dimensional compression bordisms embedded in cylinders over $M$ and take values in a linear category defined from …
We investigate the maximal solid tubes around short simple geodesics in hyperbolic three-manifolds and how complex length of curves relate to closed, incompressible, least area minimal surfaces. As applications, we prove, there are some closed hyperbolic three-manifolds fibering over the circle which are not foliated by closed incompressible minimal surfaces diffeomorphic to the fiber. We also show, the existence of quasi-Fuchsian manifolds containing arbitrarily many embedded closed incompressible minimal surfaces. Our strategy is to prove main theorems under natural geometric conditions on t…
The disk complex of a surface in a 3-manifold is used to define its {\it topological index}. Surfaces with well-defined topological index are shown to generalize well-known classes, such as incompressible, strongly irreducible, and critical surfaces. The main result is that one may always isotope a surface $H$ with topological index $n$ to meet an incompressible surface $F$ so that the sum of the indices of the components of $H \setminus N(F)$ is at most $n$. This theorem and its corollaries generalize many known results about surfaces in 3-manifolds, and often provides more efficient proofs. …
This is a personal view of some problems on minimal surfaces, Ricci flow, polyhedral geometric structures, Haken 4-manifolds, contact structures and Heegaard splittings, singular incompressible surfaces after the Hamilton-Perelman revolution.
We study incompressible surfaces constructed by Culler-Shalen theory in the context of twisted Alexander polynomials. For a $1$st cohomology class of a $3$-manifold the coefficients of twisted Alexander polynomials induce regular functions on the $SL_2(\mathbb{C})$-character variety. We prove that if an ideal point gives a Thurston norm minimizing non-separating surface dual to the cohomology class, then the regular function of the highest degree has a finite value at the ideal point.
In this paper, we give infinitely many non-Haken hyperbolic genus three 3-manifolds each of which has a finite cover whose induced Heegaard surface from some genus three Heegaard surface of the base manifold is reducible but can be compressed into an incompressible surface. This result supplements [CG] and extends [MMZ].
Let M be a compact, orientable, hyperbolizable 3-manifold with incompressible boundary which is not an interval bundle. We study the dynamics of the action of the outer automorphism group of the fundamental group of M on the relative PSL(2,C)-character variety.
Let M be an orientable and irreducible 3-manifold whose boundary is an incompressible torus. Suppose that M does not contain any closed nonperipheral embedded incompressible surfaces. We will show in this paper that the immersed surfaces in M with the 4-plane property can realize only finitely many boundary slopes. Moreover, we will show that only finitely many Dehn fillings of M can yield 3-manifolds with nonpositive cubings. This gives the first examples of hyperbolic 3-manifolds that cannot admit any nonpositive cubings.
Culler and Shalen, and later Yoshida, give ways to construct incompressible surfaces in 3-manifolds from ideal points of the character and deformation varieties, respectively. We work in the case of hyperbolic punctured torus bundles, for which the incompressible surfaces were classified by Floyd and Hatcher. We convert non fiber incompressible surfaces from their form to the form output by Yoshida's construction, and run his construction backwards to give (for non semi-fibers, which we identify) the data needed to construct ideal points of the deformation variety corresponding to those surfac…
In this paper we describe a procedure for refining the given triangulation of a 3-manifold that scales the PL-metric according to a given weight function while creating no new normal surfaces. It is known that an incompressible surface $F$ in a triangulated 3-manifold $M$ is isotopic to a normal surface that is of minimal PL-area in the isotopy class of $F$. Using the above scaling refinement we prove the converse. If $F$ is a surface in a closed 3-manifold $M$ such that for any triangulation $τ$ of $M$, $F$ is isotopic to a $τ$-normal surface $F(τ)$ that is of minimal PL-area in its isotopy c…
We study the class $\mathcal M^B$ of 3-manifolds $M$ that have a compact exhaustion $M=\cup_{i\in\mathbb N} M_i$ satisfying: each $M_i$ is hyperbolizable with incompressible boundary and each component of $\partial M_i$ has genus at most $g= g(M)$. For manifolds in $\mathcal M^{B}$ we give necessary and sufficient topological conditions that guarantee the existence of a complete hyperbolic metric.
We study totally geodesic planes in hyperbolic 3-manifolds $M$ having incompressible core and degenerate ends. We prove a Ratner-type phenomenon: a closed minimal $PSL(2,R)-$invariant subset of $M$ is either an immersed totally geodesic surface or all of $M$. We also show that for an arbitrary infinite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ without parabolics and with finitely generated fundamental group, the number of compact totally geodesic surfaces in $M$ is finite.
Kevin Hartshorn showed that if a three-dimensional manifold $M$ admits a Heegaard surface $Σ$ with Hempel distance $d$ then every incompressible surface in $M$ has genus at least $\frac{d}{2}$. Scharlemann-Tomova generalized this, proving that in such a manifold, every other Heegaard surface for $M$ of genus $g' < \frac{d}{2}$ is a stabilization of $Σ$. In the present paper, we show that Hartshorn's bound is sharp and Scharlemann-Tomova's bound is very close to sharp. In particular, for every pair of integers $g \geq 2, d \geq 2$, we construct a three-manifold $M$ with a genus $g$, distance $d…
Let M be a closed, orientable, irreducible, non-simply connected 3-manifold. We prove that if M admits a sequence of Riemannian metrics whose sectional curvature is locally controlled and whose thick part becomes asymptotically hyperbolic and has a sufficiently small volume, then M is Seifert fibred or contains an incompressible torus. This result gives an alternative approach for the last step in Perelman's proof of the Geometrisation Conjecture for aspherical 3-manifolds.
It is shown that for given positive integers g and b, there is a number C(g,b), such that any orientable compact irreducible 3-manifold of Heegaard genus g has at most C(g,b) disjoint, nonparallel incompressible surfaces with first Betti number b_1 < b.
Colding and Gabai have given an effective version of Li's theorem that non-Haken hyperbolic 3-manifolds have finitely many irreducible Heegaard splittings. As a corollary of their work, we show that Haken hyperbolic 3-manifolds have a finite collection of strongly irreducible Heegaard surfaces $S_i$ and incompressible surfaces $K_j$ such that any strongly irreducible Heegaard surface is a Haken sum $S_i + \sum_j n_j K_j$, up to one-sided associates of the Heegaard surfaces.
Given a 3-manifold M containing an incompressible surface Q, we obtain an inequality relating the Heegaard genus of M and the Heegaard genera of the components of M - Q. Here the sum of the genera of the components of M - Q is bounded above by a linear expression in terms of the genus of M, the Euler characteristic of Q and the number of parallelism classes of essential annuli for which representatives can be simultaneously imbedded in the components of M - Q.
Suppose that a three-manifold M contains infinitely many distinct strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings H + nK, obtained by Haken summing the surface H with n copies of the surface K. We show that K is incompressible. All known examples, of manifolds containing infinitely many irreducible Heegaard splittings, are of this form. We also give new examples of such manifolds.
We prove that if S is a properly embedded incompressible surface in a compact 3-manifold M, then the fundamental group of S is separable in the fundamental group of M.
In this paper, we prove that if a quasi-Fuchsian 3-manifold $M$ contains a simple closed geodesic with complex length $\Lscr=l+iθ$ such that $θ/l\gg{}1$, then it contains at least two minimal surfaces which are incompressible in $M$.
We show that every hyperbolic link complement contains closed quasi-Fuchsian surfaces. As a consequence, we obtain the result that on a hyperbolic link complement, if we remove from each cusp of the manifold a certain finite set of slopes, then all remaining Dehn fillings on the link complement yield manifolds with closed immersed incompressible surfaces.
We give another proof of a theorem of Scharlemann and Tomova and of a theorem of Hartshorn. The two theorems together say the following. Let M be a compact orientable irreducible 3--manifold and P a Heegaard surface of M. Suppose Q is either an incompressible surface or a strongly irreducible Heegaard surface in M. Then either the Hempel distance d(P) <= 2 genus(Q) or P is isotopic to Q. This theorem can be naturally extended to bicompressible but weakly incompressible surfaces.
In the curve complex for a surface, a handlebody set is the set of loops that bound properly embedded disks in a given handlebody bounded by the surface. A boundary set is the set of non-separating loops in the curve complex that bound two-sided, properly embedded surfaces. For a Heegaard splitting, the distance between the boundary sets of the handlebodies is zero if and only if the ambient manifold contains a non-separating, two sided incompressible surface. We show that the boundary set is 2-dense in the curve complex, i.e. every vertex is within two edges of a point in the boundary set.
We classify those compact 3-manifolds with incompressible toral boundary whose fundamental groups are residually free. For example, if such a manifold $M$ is prime and orientable and the fundamental group of $M$ is non-trivial then $M \cong Σ\times S^1$, where $Σ$ is a surface.
Let M_1 and M_2 be compact, orientable 3-manifolds with incompressible boundary, and M the manifold obtained by gluing with a homeomorphism $ϕ:\bdy M_1 \to \bdy M_2$. We analyze the relationship between the sets of low genus Heegaard splittings of M_1, M_2, and M, assuming the map ϕis "sufficiently complicated." This analysis yields counter-examples to the Stabilization Conjecture, a resolution of the higher genus analogue of a conjecture of Gordon, and a result about the uniqueness of expressions of Heegaard splittings as amalgamations.
We prove a finiteness result for the $\partial$-patterned guts decomposition of all 3-manifolds obtained by splitting a given orientable, irreducible and $\partial$-irreducible 3-manifold along a closed incompressible surface. Then using the Thurston norm, we deduce that the JSJ-pieces of all 3-manifolds dominated by a given compact 3-manifold belong, up to homeomorphism, to a finite collection of compact 3-manifolds. We show also that any closed orientable 3-manifold dominates only finitely many integral homology spheres and any compact 3-manifolds orientable 3-manifold dominates only finitel…
Motivated by classical theorems on minimal surface theory in compact hyperbolic three-manifolds, we investigate the questions of existence and deformations for least area minimal surfaces in complete noncompact hyperbolic three-manifold of finite volume. We prove any closed immersed incompressible surface can be deformed to a closed immersed least area surface within its homotopy class in any cusped hyperbolic three-manifold. Our techniques highlight how special structures of these cusped hyperbolic three-manifolds prevent any least area minimal surface going too deep into the cusped region.
Let M be a graph manifold. We prove that fundamental groups of embedded incompressible surfaces in M are separable in the fundamental group of M, and that the double cosets for crossing surfaces are also separable. We deduce that if there is a "sufficient" collection of surfaces in M, then the fundamental group of M is virtually the fundamental group of a special nonpositively curved cube complex. We provide a sufficient collection for graph manifolds with boundary thus proving that their fundamental groups are virtually special, and hence linear.
In this paper we introduce a general notion of weak extension property for embeddings induced by a group actions. As an example, for the group H(M, m) of measure-preserving homeomorphisms of a noncompact manifold M, we deduce weak type extension theorems, and as an application we exhibit the local contractibility of the group H_c(M, m) of measure-preserving homeomorphisms with compact support of a noncompact connected manifold M endowed with the Whitney topology.
It is well known that every quasi-Fuchsian manifold admits at least one closed incompressible minimal surface, and at most finitely many of them. In this paper, for any prescribed integer $N>0$, we construct a quasi-Fuchsian manifold which contains at least $2^N$ such minimal surfaces. As a consequence, there exists some simple close Jordan curve on $S^2_\infty$ such that there are at least $2^N$ disk-type complete minimal surface in $\mathbb{H}^3$ sharing this Jordan curve as the asymptotic boundary.
For each Frobenius algebra there is defined a skein module of surfaces embedded in a given 3-manifold and bounding a prescribed curve system in the boundary. The skein relations are local and generate the kernel of a certain natural extension of the corresponding topological quantum field theory. In particular the skein module of the 3-ball is isomorphic to the ground ring of the Frobenius algebra. We prove a presentation theorem for the skein module with generators incompressible surfaces colored by elements of a generating set of the Frobenius algebra, and with relations determined by tubing…
An almost Fuchsian manifold is a quasi-Fuchsian hyperbolic three-manifold that contains a closed incompressible minimal surface with principal curvatures everywhere in the range of (-1,1). In such a hyperbolic three-manifold, the minimal surface is unique and embedded, hence one can parametrize these three-manifolds by their minimal surfaces. We prove that any closed surface which is a graph over any fixed surface of small principal curvatures can be deformed into the minimal surface via the mean curvature flow. We also obtain an upper bound for the hyperbolic volume of the convex core of M, a…
